Paul Muschick: Will the state House play politics or protect taxpayers from corruption?

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives should quickly approve legislation passed by the Senate this week to fix a loophole in the pension forfeiture law and prevent felons from retiring on the public’s dime. (Matt Rourke / AP)

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has a choice to make: Does it want good government or does it want to play politics?

The House gets to decide how long taxpayers will remain exposed to paying the retirement of corrupt public officials. There’s an easy way to prevent that (good government) and a way to prolong the problem (politics).

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There are two bills in the House that would require local, county and state public employees to forfeit their government pension if they are convicted of, or plead guilty to, any felony related to their job.

It’s a problem the Legislature has been trying to solve since 2017, when former state Sen. Robert Mellow of Lackawanna County regained his $245,000 annual pension despite pleading guilty to a federal conspiracy charge in 2012. He also received more than $1 million in back payments that accrued during his legal battle.

There is no limit to how much this problem could cost taxpayers, which is why it must be addressed immediately.

One bill is teed up and ready to go. It’s already halfway to becoming law, because it was passed unanimously by the Senate on Monday. If the House approves that bill, Senate Bill 113, that would be good government.

The other bill, House Bill 59, is in the infancy of the legislative lifespan and would take a lot longer to become law. It hasn’t even been reviewed by a committee. If the House wants its bill to become law instead of the Senate bill, and wastes time sending its bill through the process, that would be playing politics.

Last year, the roles were reversed when lawmakers took on this issue. The Senate had the same choice to make — start anew with its own bill or sign off on a bill that already was passed by the House and was halfway through the process.

It ignored the House bill and wasted eight months passing its own legislation. Then both bills stalled and neither became law, leaving taxpayers exposed to paying for the pensions of officials who commit crimes while on the job.

The House shouldn’t let the public down like the Senate did last year. Failing to act could be costly to taxpayers, as the Mellow case illustrates.

The state’s pension forfeiture law currently has a list of offenses that trigger a forfeiture. But that list is not inclusive enough. Mellow was accused of using taxpayer-funded staff for the political purposes of raising money and campaigning.

After his guilty plea, his pension was revoked. He fought to keep it, arguing the forfeiture law did not cover the specific offense he pleaded to. The state retirement board ruled in his favor.

That was in December 2017. Since then, state lawmakers repeatedly have said how outraged they were and vowed to do something about it. But they haven’t closed the deal.

That has let other officials slip through the loophole. During a Senate Finance Committee meeting on Jan. 29, Sen. John DiSanto, R-Dauphin, said a PennDOT employee recently pleaded guilty to a felony offense that doesn’t trigger a pension forfeiture, so he will retain his pension.

The Senate’s swift action this week to pass legislation to close the loophole was refreshing, though its efforts still were tainted with politics.

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During the Finance Committee meeting, Sen. John Blake pointed out how the House had failed to act on the Senate’s bill last year.

“It’s necessary and important to get this done,” said Blake, D-Lackawanna. “We did go 50-0 off the Senate floor. Just didn’t get it to the finish line in the House.”

DiSanto, R-Dauphin, who wrote the current Senate legislation, urged the House to endorse it.

“It is well past time to require all egregious offenders to face a financial penalty for violating the public trust,” DiSanto said in a news release. “We need to get this done for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. I hope the House takes this legislation up soon and moves it across the finish line.”

Yes, the Legislature needs to get this done. Let’s not forget that the Senate could have gotten it done last year.

This year, since the Senate finished its work on its bill first, the House should take it up and ignore its own bill on the same topic. The goal should be to pass legislation to protect taxpayers, not to fight over who gets to be the hero.